Stop being greedy or your won't have a job!

You developers let yourselves get bought out by Warner Brothers and now you are also letting their greed ruin this game completely. The numbers are falling. You're now resorting to stupid ideas like the bounders bags to market the next expansion. You see the numbers from your side, I see the players from mine and we both know whats happening. Your letting Warner Brothers greed kill the game! Your doing nothing but stupid decisions that are pissing players off and having them leave. More money, more money, more money!

Don't you friggen realize yet that its your jobs at stake here if you let greed kill the game? I lose a game, but you lose a job. Is that what you really want? In this economy?

Look, you developers are going to have to take a friggen stand against all of Warner Brothers greed if you want to save this game and your employment. I can't do it. You have too. Yeah it sucks. But if you don't stop them and thier greedy game killing bullcrap ideas from killing this game then you are the ones who are going to lose way more than I will. Want to play chicken? We both lose here. Or don't you see that yet.

You only have until January to try to friggen stand up for work and your jobs. After that, the year end numbers will come in and the 4th q 2013 number will come in and then it will be nothing but an uphill battle. Now, with this latest expansion and movie coming out, you might be able to save things. But if you do nothing but cower to Warner Brothers management constant greed then you might as well kiss your jobs goodbye because people will keep leaving in droves because you will keep killing the game to try to keep getting more money. You wanted to sell out to the big dog and now you are getting the horns. Stand up and fight for what right in the game or there will not be a game left worth playing and you will be doing so bullcrap job you hate. Don't count on trying to get another game development job in this economy, not in Boston anyway.

Ready to move to California or Texas? I hope so, because that's exactly what you will be doing in two years if you don't start standing up to Warner Brothers and their constant greed now.

Greed? You think all of the issues in the game are about greed?
1) LotRO is the only "Freemium" game in which you can get everything by playing if you are smart enough. That is not greed.
2) Despite what many think, for the money spent you get one of the best deals out there. In both terms of content and support. $15 dollars a month gets you unlimited access to support. It wouldn't even get you 20min on the phone with my company if you don't hold one of our contracts (highly specialized support).
3) Personally, this is the cheapest game I have ever played. You really do not need a high tech computer to play it. Even with the mods I have made to my Satellite's drivers (08 with Intel chipsets), it won't touch many other high end games out there.

Now Devs didn't make the business decision to be bought out, that was a boardroom decision. It was the right one. In today's economy the only way to make money is to be big, or associated with someone big. Its a very centralized global economy with little room for upstarts or small entities especially when dealing with services delivered using the Internet. Turbine needs a large backer or would have failed in the next couple of years. It was not greed, it was a decision made based on rules of survival.

A note to others: Make sure any posts in which you try to construct an argument, do so with all the right information, use no logical fallacies and remember to appeal to logic at least.

I think it pretty clear LOTRO dialed the greed up a notch; but it isn't as bad as all that; I don't think it is the primary issue driving people away from LOTRO. Content is the #1 problem with those who are leaving.

On the other hand... LOTRO is not the "... only Freemium..." "... best deal in terms of content and support..." in town.

You developers let yourselves get bought out by Warner Brothers and now you are also letting their greed ruin this game completely. The numbers are falling. You're now resorting to stupid ideas like the bounders bags to market the next expansion. You see the numbers from your side, I see the players from mine and we both know whats happening. Your letting Warner Brothers greed kill the game! Your doing nothing but stupid decisions that are pissing players off and having them leave. More money, more money, more money!

Don't you friggen realize yet that its your jobs at stake here if you let greed kill the game? I lose a game, but you lose a job. Is that what you really want? In this economy?

Look, you developers are going to have to take a friggen stand against all of Warner Brothers greed if you want to save this game and your employment. I can't do it. You have too. Yeah it sucks. But if you don't stop them and thier greedy game killing bullcrap ideas from killing this game then you are the ones who are going to lose way more than I will. Want to play chicken? We both lose here. Or don't you see that yet.

You only have until January to try to friggen stand up for work and your jobs. After that, the year end numbers will come in and the 4th q 2013 number will come in and then it will be nothing but an uphill battle. Now, with this latest expansion and movie coming out, you might be able to save things. But if you do nothing but cower to Warner Brothers management constant greed then you might as well kiss your jobs goodbye because people will keep leaving in droves because you will keep killing the game to try to keep getting more money. You wanted to sell out to the big dog and now you are getting the horns. Stand up and fight for what right in the game or there will not be a game left worth playing and you will be doing so bullcrap job you hate. Don't count on trying to get another game development job in this economy, not in Boston anyway.

Ready to move to California or Texas? I hope so, because that's exactly what you will be doing in two years if you don't start standing up to Warner Brothers and their constant greed now.

If greed were the governing factor then it would be logical to assume that your reference points would support the alternate view. If they are loosing people that would not support greed. What they are doing seems to be creating more content for the F2P crowd and steering them to more micro transactions. The game has been dumbed down to the point of utter boredom until you get to cap, very little challenge in PVE leveling at all ATM. I support greed and capitalism I believe its a good thing when its driven by demand, its a great expression and completion of the concept of free will. Everyone consuming LOTRO is doing so of their own free will, I hope turbine makes a lot of money off the game that's a good thing for LOTRO. Now Im not a fan of what they have implemented (latest being trait trees, dumbing it down even more) but its their game. Im not the target audience clearly, as the only challenging content seems to be a handful of T2 raids and 15-20% of the time the PvP play. I think they are going to be fine, plenty of people still pay to play. Maybe less then before, I don't know but the only way to get them to change what they are doing is to change your consumption. Consumption governs greed.

Its a free economy, consumers govern spending. Spending governs practices. The practices are what are in question. Do you shop at Wal-Mart Sikhan? Do you buy gas? Do you purchase anything that isn't produced locally? You are to blame. Where you spend your money details the rest of the cycle. If you can't prove everything you have does not cause a problem to someone else in the world, you are in a group occupied by none. I buy my clothes at local shops in which I can trace everything back to its origins in a Carolina field. I buy my food almost purely from local farmers and bakers (family farms help with this). What I don't buy local, I can trace back to the farm, ocean and so on it came from. I can trace the jewelry I buy my fiance back to the mines it comes from. I go to gas stations in which they get it from suppliers that are in the top tier of their field. Only thing I can't trace all the way is electronics. I do my part to leave minimum negative impact in this world. What do you do to combat the greed you complain about? Unless you are actively fighting it besides complaining, you are just as bad. Do your part, or don't play the "I am holier than you" role. The market is free, everyone makes their own decisions. This is the beauty of the system we have. Now only if we listened to Hayek instead of Keynes.

"Profit never impoverished anyone?" Wow, you need to wake the hell up man.

That's a gold mine in Congo. Guess who runs that gold mine?

That's what oil companies did in Ecuador because it was cheaper to just dump thier waste in the jungle than clean it up and ship it to processing.

That's who makes your brand named clothing from Bangladesh. You want me to keep going or do you want to wake the hell up and smell the coffee here about the real world?

So the workers have a job, are they not profiting? Or are you taking this to the next level and supposing how much profit each person should derive? That would be a great discussion point in the context of lotro, please lead the way. How much exactly should turbine be able to make?

You developers let yourselves get bought out by Warner Brothers and now you are also letting their greed ruin this game completely. The numbers are falling. You're now resorting to stupid ideas like the bounders bags to market the next expansion. You see the numbers from your side, I see the players from mine and we both know whats happening. Your letting Warner Brothers greed kill the game! Your doing nothing but stupid decisions that are pissing players off and having them leave. More money, more money, more money!

Don't you friggen realize yet that its your jobs at stake here if you let greed kill the game? I lose a game, but you lose a job. Is that what you really want? In this economy?

Look, you developers are going to have to take a friggen stand against all of Warner Brothers greed if you want to save this game and your employment. I can't do it. You have too. Yeah it sucks. But if you don't stop them and thier greedy game killing bullcrap ideas from killing this game then you are the ones who are going to lose way more than I will. Want to play chicken? We both lose here. Or don't you see that yet.

You only have until January to try to friggen stand up for work and your jobs. After that, the year end numbers will come in and the 4th q 2013 number will come in and then it will be nothing but an uphill battle. Now, with this latest expansion and movie coming out, you might be able to save things. But if you do nothing but cower to Warner Brothers management constant greed then you might as well kiss your jobs goodbye because people will keep leaving in droves because you will keep killing the game to try to keep getting more money. You wanted to sell out to the big dog and now you are getting the horns. Stand up and fight for what right in the game or there will not be a game left worth playing and you will be doing so bullcrap job you hate. Don't count on trying to get another game development job in this economy, not in Boston anyway.

Ready to move to California or Texas? I hope so, because that's exactly what you will be doing in two years if you don't start standing up to Warner Brothers and their constant greed now.

They don't make money, then no job for them meaning then no game for us to play with.
They don't do what WB wants them to do then no job for them meaning no LOTRO for us to play with.

Developers are not the ones who deals with the marketing system, all the devs do is just create content, fix bugs, and make the game. It's the marketers in the company that deals with how many is to be made.

Also, where had greed been shown? What the LOTRO store? If turbine/WB were that greedy then they wouldn't award free TP, everything probably cost way higher (x10), and the game wouldn't had lasted past MoM.

What you expect from an F2P? They have to make money somehow to be able to keep the servers up and still be able to make profits. They ain't giving free stuffs around while losing money you know, what? was that what you expected? Turbine to give you a completely F2P MMO with no store and pay-gated stuffs? Refer back to the beginning of my post and reread it over and over again until you understand that Turbine needs a way to be able to make profits to not only stay in business but also keep the servers up.

So the workers have a job, are they not profiting? Or are you taking this to the next level and supposing how much profit each person should derive? That would be a great discussion point in the context of lotro, please lead the way. How much exactly should turbine be able to make?

This is an amazing conversation to be had anyway. Let's hope Sapience keeps this up so we can have this awesome conversation. Each person should derive as much profit as their "situation" allows. Anyone can go into a mine and mine. Its a job that almost any able bodied person could do. Now running the mine is 100-1000x harder. Do they get compensated for the increased difficulty. Yes, but not at the scale of difficulty. The people controlling the traffic from mine trade have it slightly easier, but need to know how to hustle. They can make money just by selling resources or getting those resource to higher entities. Those large entities throw the most money out there so they make the most. In business you have to have money to make money. That is why the boards make the most money in the end.

Is this is system fair? Yes it is technically, ask any economist.

P.S. Thorgrum, where did you go to college? It sounds like we shared a professor even though I took Economics 203 senior year of high school. (Farthest I went)

You developers let yourselves get bought out by Warner Brothers and now you are also letting their greed ruin this game completely. The numbers are falling. You're now resorting to stupid ideas like the bounders bags to market the next expansion. You see the numbers from your side, I see the players from mine and we both know whats happening. Your letting Warner Brothers greed kill the game! Your doing nothing but stupid decisions that are pissing players off and having them leave. More money, more money, more money!

Don't you friggen realize yet that its your jobs at stake here if you let greed kill the game? I lose a game, but you lose a job. Is that what you really want? In this economy?

Look, you developers are going to have to take a friggen stand against all of Warner Brothers greed if you want to save this game and your employment. I can't do it. You have too. Yeah it sucks. But if you don't stop them and thier greedy game killing bullcrap ideas from killing this game then you are the ones who are going to lose way more than I will. Want to play chicken? We both lose here. Or don't you see that yet.

You only have until January to try to friggen stand up for work and your jobs. After that, the year end numbers will come in and the 4th q 2013 number will come in and then it will be nothing but an uphill battle. Now, with this latest expansion and movie coming out, you might be able to save things. But if you do nothing but cower to Warner Brothers management constant greed then you might as well kiss your jobs goodbye because people will keep leaving in droves because you will keep killing the game to try to keep getting more money. You wanted to sell out to the big dog and now you are getting the horns. Stand up and fight for what right in the game or there will not be a game left worth playing and you will be doing so bullcrap job you hate. Don't count on trying to get another game development job in this economy, not in Boston anyway.

Ready to move to California or Texas? I hope so, because that's exactly what you will be doing in two years if you don't start standing up to Warner Brothers and their constant greed now.

Do you want to see greed in the mmorpg industry? Go play SWTOR! Bioware are charging 20$ for a one use dye or 19$ for supermini expansion that is even smaller than the smallest LOTRO expansion: Mirkwood.

Quote Originally Posted by Cavedweller
On the other hand... LOTRO is not the "... only Freemium..." "... best deal in terms of content and support..." in town.

Envoyé par Yula_the_Mighty

Please provide examples within the MMORPG space to support this statement.

Try looking at SOE's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a freemium MMO, it makes Lotro look sick! It's also old school enough that most modern players will probably find it too hard for them. They would actually have to work to earn anything in the game and dying has consequences. They would also need to group to accomplish things, so it is probably not a game for most players these days since it isn't designed for the 'Hello Kitty' level player!

And before you ask, I play Vanguard when I want to enjoy my gaming and Lotro when I am tired and need something easy to amuse me.

You've never seen real greed in a game if you think LOTRO is greedy...Try playing a flash game...there you can buy end game items/buffs for real money at level 1...And then become an invincible machine.

I have spent $15 for one month of vip and bought a total of 2600 tp (around $30). I now have/have enough tp to unlock: Evendim, Angmar, Forochel, Eregion, Moria, Mirkwood, Great River, Rohan and have some extra tp left over....I think that's a pretty good deal...

LotRO is the only "Freemium" game in which you can get everything by playing if you are smart enough.

I don't play too many mmos, but I know this is false. In RIFT, all the quests and instances are free, and you can use in-game currency to buy the store currency, which, in turn, can be used for anything in the store, including game subs of varying duration. And the store isn't shoved down your throat on every piece of the UI. (On the negative side, some pretty high level gear may be purchased and all vendors open up the store window.)

I don't know about Vanguard geing Hard as such, it's different, is all.

Granted the crafting in it is a bit more academic than just pressing a button, but the actual combat is quite similar to even some single player rpg games.

The dificulty level of the combat enemies is significantly higher than Lotro and when you die (and you will repeatedly) you don't just respawn elsewhere with all your equipment, cash and xp intact. You have to go and get it back.